Klaus (film)
| screenplay = | story = | starring = | narrator = | music = | editing = Pablo Garcia Revert | studio = | distributor = Netflix | released = | runtime = 97 minutes | country = Spain | language = | budget = $40 million | gross = }} Klaus is a 2019 English-language Spanish animated Christmas comedy-drama film written and directed by Sergio Pablos in his directorial debut, produced by his company Sergio Pablos Animation Studios with the support of Aniventure and distributed by Netflix. Co-written by Zach Lewis and Jim Mahoney, the film stars the voices of Jason Schwartzman, J. K. Simmons, Rashida Jones, Will Sasso, Neda Margrethe Labba, Sergio Pablos, Norm MacDonald, and Joan Cusack. Serving as an alternate origin story of Santa Claus different from the historical take of Saint Nicholas of Myra, with a fictional 19th-century setting, the plot revolves around a postman stationed in an island town to the Far North who befriends a reclusive toymaker (Klaus). Klaus was released on 8 November 2019 and received positive reviews for its animation, story, and vocal performances. It won 7 Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature, at the 47th Annie Awards and won Best Animated Film at the 73rd British Academy Film Awards. The film was nominated at the 92nd Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature, making it the first animated film from Netflix to be nominated for an Academy Award, alongside I Lost My Body, but lost to Toy Story 4. Plot Jesper Johansson (Jason Schwartzman) is the lazy and spoiled son of a wealthy Postmaster General, who has enrolled Jesper into his postman training academy hoping that it will reform him. Jesper deliberately underperforms, forcing his father to finally send him to the distant island town of Smeerensburg with the task of posting six-thousand letters within a year. If Jesper fails, he will be cut off from the family estate. Upon arrival, it is explained to Jesper by sarcastic ferryman Mogens (Norm Macdonald), and bitter teacher-turned-fishmonger Alva (Rashida Jones), that the town's perpetually warring families—the Ellingboes and the Krums—comprise nearly all of the populace and hardly exchange words, let alone letters. Desperately trying to find a way to post letters from the town, Jesper notices on the map in his office that there is an isolated dwelling at the far end of the island. Investigating, he discovers a reclusive woodsman named Klaus (J.K. Simmons) with a house filled with handmade toys. Terrified by the man’s imposing appearance, Jesper flees, while inadvertently leaving behind a sad drawing he had found earlier made by one of Smeerensburg’s children. Klaus forces Jesper to lead him to the boy's house depicted in the drawing, and then makes Jesper secretly deliver a toy to the boy inside. Word of this event spreads to other children, who go to Jesper the next day, each believing that they will receive a toy if they send him a letter. Jesper capitalizes on the idea and goes to Klaus with the proposal of donating the toys in his house; Klaus agrees provided that they operate at night, and that Jesper continues to deliver the toys in secret. Soon, more and more children begin writing letters to Klaus. When Jesper tells them that Klaus only gives toys to good children, and always knows when any child misbehaves, the acts of kindness they subsequently perform gradually inspire the rest of the townsfolk to end their ancient disputes, and Alva reopens her school to help the children learn to read and write. Eventually, Jesper and Klaus begin running out of toys to give to the children. With the end of the year and Jesper's deadline coming up, he tries persuading Klaus into making more toys in time for Christmas. Klaus initially refuses, and he pushes Jesper away after a misunderstanding. The duo then reconcile by working together on a sled for a small Sámi girl named Márgu, who lives in an isolated settlement with her people. After this, Klaus finally tells Jesper about his wife, Lydia, and explains he made the toys to give to the future children the couple hoped to have but never did, and Lydia eventually died from illness. Klaus has realized their work has been spreading joy to the children and agrees to the Christmas plan, with Márgu and the rest of the people from her settlement arriving to help. As the town and his relationship with Alva flourishes, Jesper finds himself wanting to stay in Smeerensburg. Meanwhile, family elders Aksel Ellingboe (Will Sasso) and Tammy Krum (Joan Cusack) form a temporary truce in order to stop Jesper and Klaus so that the families can resume their traditional feuding. They trick Jesper's father into believing Jesper had posted fourteen-thousand letters, and he arrives on Christmas eve to congratulate his son, inadvertently revealing to Jesper's friends the selfish reasons for his deeds. Just as they are about to leave town, Jesper's father notices his son's remorse, and after a talk he allows Jesper to stay in Smeerensburg. Seeing the elders and their gang going to Klaus' home to destroy the Christmas toys, Jesper tries to stop them and apparently fails. However, over the course of the chase that ensued, Mr. Ellingboe's daughter and Mrs. Krum's son fall in love. Alva had also been informed of the elders' plot by the town's children, and so she and Klaus had already replaced the toys with decoys. Jesper is redeemed, and Smeerensburg becomes a happy town, with the family elders being forced to end the families' feud due to the marriage of their children. Jesper marries Alva and raises two children, and he and Klaus continue to deliver presents in Smeerensburg and beyond for eleven years. Then on the twelfth year, Klaus follows a wisp of wind up a sunny hill and disappears, seemingly to join his departed wife. Every subsequent Christmas Eve, Jesper sits beside the fireplace and waits to see Klaus as his spirit continues to deliver toys to children around the world. Background Pablos said Smeerensburg is a deliberate misspelling of Smeerenburg, a former Dutch and Danish whaling station in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.Klaus director pushed past the limitations of traditional animation Voice cast * Jason Schwartzman as Jesper Johansson, a postman who befriends Klaus and helps bring a good Christmas to Smeerensburg, while getting accustomed to a life outside of his self-centred comfort zone. * J. K. Simmons as Klaus (Santa Claus), a reclusive woodsman who makes toys. ** Simmons also voices Drill Sarge, the assistant head of the Johansson family's postal department (uncredited). * Rashida Jones as Alva, a schoolteacher turned fishmonger and Jesper's love interest. * Joan Cusack as Mrs. Tammy Krum, the family matriarch carrying on an ancient feud of her family with the Ellingboes. * Will Sasso as Mr. Aksel Ellingboe, the family patriarch carrying on an ancient feud of his family with the Krums. * Norm Macdonald as Mogens, a sarcastic and mischievous ferryman who lives in Smeerensburg. * Neda Margrethe Labba as Márgu, a little Saami girl who befriends Jesper. * Sergio Pablos as: ** Magdolane, Mr. Ellingboe's daughter whose only word is "mine". ** Olaf, Mrs. Krum's son who just makes sounds. * Reiulf Aleksandersen and Sara Margrethe Oksal as Adults Saami voices Additional children voices by Evan Agos, Sky Alexis, Jaeden Bettencourt, Teddy Blum, Mila Brener, Sydney Brower, Finn Carr, Kendall Joy Hall, Hayley Hermida, Lexie Holland, Brooke Huckeba, Matthew McCann, Tucker Meek, Leo Miller, Joaquin Obradors, Víctor Pablos, Lucian Perez, Bailey Rae Fenderson, Maximus Riegel, Emma Shannon, Ayden Soria, Sunday Sturz, Hudson West, Gordon Wilcox, Emma Yarovinskiy and Julian Zane Additional adult voices by Brad Abrell, Catherine Cavadini, Bill Chott, Daniel Crook, Brian Finney, Stephen Hughes, Neil Kaplan, Sam McMurray, Amanda Philipson, Alyson Reed, Dee Dee Rescher, Dwight Schultz, Lloyd Sherr, Helen Slayton-Hughes and Travis Willingham Production After setting up his own animation studio in Madrid, Spain, director Sergio Pablos, who had worked on Disney Renaissance films such as Aladdin, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, and Tarzan, decided to develop a new traditionally-animated feature film. Pablos wanted to explore how the medium would have evolved had western animation film studios not switched to producing mostly computer animated films since the 1990s. For the film's look, the studio sought to overcome some of the technical limitations that traditional animation had, focusing on organic and volumetric lighting and texturing to give a film a unique look, while maintaining a hand-crafted feel. Proprietary tools from Les films du Poisson Rouge, a French company in Angoulême, were used to allow the team to produce a variety of visual development styles, with the aim of getting away from the standardized style of "characters looking like stickers put on painted backgrounds." Fellow Disney animator James Baxter, known for Beauty and the Beast, also worked on the film. The first teaser for the project was released in April 2015; at the time, the studio was seeking investment, co-production, and distribution partners. It was shopped around to various studios, who perceived it as "too risky." In November 2017, Netflix announced that they had acquired the global rights to Klaus; at the same time, the casting of Schwartzman, Jones, Simmons, and Cusack was announced along with a Christmas 2019 release date. In March 2019, it was reported that Netflix was planning an Oscar-qualifying run for Klaus in theaters, and it was listed as one of ten films Netflix was negotiating with chains to give limited releases prior to their online debuts that August. The film's release date was announced, alongside the debut of an official trailer, on October 7. The film is dedicated to animator and scene checker Mary Lescher who died on June 2, 2019 of cancer. She had worked on Klaus, as well as other animated features such as Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King. Release Klaus was released theatrically in select theaters on November 8, 2019, and was released digitally through Netflix on November 15. It is the first original animated feature film to appear on Netflix. On December 20, 2019, Netflix announced that the film had been viewed by nearly 30 million viewers on its service within its first month of release. Reception Critical response On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 93% based on 61 reviews, with an average rating of 7.59/10. The critical consensus reads "Beautiful hand-drawn animation and a humorous, heartwarming narrative make Klaus an instant candidate for holiday classic status." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a positive review, writing: "Sergio Pablos' Klaus invents its own unexpected and very enjoyable origin story for the big guy who gives out toys every Christmas eve. Shaking off most Yuletide cliches in favor of a from-scratch story about how even dubiously-motivated generosity can lead to joy, it contains echoes of other seasonal favorites (especially, in a topsy-turvy way, Dr. Seuss' Grinch) while standing completely on its own." Peter Debruge of Variety gave the film a mixed review, calling the film over-complicated and saying: "What goodwill the movie does inspire owes more to the splendid visual world than to anything the story supplies." According to data provided by Netflix to Reuters, the film racked up nearly 30 million views worldwide in its first month. The film beat Toy Story 4 for best Animated Film of 2019 on Animation Magazine. Accolades Soundtrack "Invisible" by Zara Larsson and "How You Like Me Now?" by The Heavy are featured in the film. The song "High Hopes" by Panic! at the Disco is featured in the trailer. References External links * * * * }} Category:2010s adventure comedy films Category:2010s children's animated films Category:2010s Christmas films Category:2019 animated films Category:2019 films Category:Animated Christmas films Category:Annie Award winners Category:Best Animated Feature BAFTA winners Category:Christmas comedy films Category:Directorial debut films Category:English-language films Category:Films set in the Arctic Category:Films set in the 19th century Category:Netflix Animation films Category:Santa Claus in film Category:Spanish adventure comedy films Category:Spanish animated films Category:Spanish children's films Category:Spanish adventure films Category:Spanish comedy films